


What Six Sees

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Families of Choice, M/M, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Social Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 20:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5942467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six has good eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Six Sees

**Author's Note:**

> Set at an indeterminate point after the end of the novel. Also, Six is the best.

‘What are you doing?’ Six asked warily. She had come down the steps quietly, because she knew Mr Steepleton was in the kitchen with Mr Mori, and she wasn’t entirely sure about Mr Steepleton yet. Mr Mori liked him, which she thought meant she should too. But then, Mr Mori also didn’t seem to mind policemen and shopkeeps and other adults Six thought anyone with their wits about them should be concerned about, so she wasn’t wholly convinced. 

Mr Steepleton inhaled sharply and stepped quickly back from the table. Now she could see Mr Mori was sitting behind him. His tools were laid out before him as if he had been at work on something, but Six could tell he hadn’t been using them.

Mr Mori didn’t turn around. Mr Steepleton didn’t either, but he kept looking at her over his shoulder and then glancing away.

Six knew that look well. Anyone would recognize it. It was the sort of look you had when you hadn’t been careful and Matron caught you with your hands in something they shouldn’t have been. 

Her eyes narrowed. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked again, sharply this time.

Mr Steepleton looked helplessly at Mr Mori.

‘She hasn’t asked me.’ 

A look passed between them. ‘Thaniel,’ he said. ‘It’s fine.’ 

‘I was…giving Mr Mori a hug.’ 

‘Why?’

Mr Steepleton winced, then collected himself and forged ahead. ‘Because it’s what you do when you care for someone.’

She looked from Mr Steepleton to Mr Mori in time to see the corner of his mouth tick up before he twitched it back into place. Mr Steepleton looked both mortified and rather pleased with himself, although Six didn’t see he’d done anything to be proud of.

‘Oh,’ she said, and went outside before either of them thought the better of it and made her stay in.

Pockets of grimy snow still lay piled at the edges of the streets or in garden corners where the sun didn’t reach, but most of it had melted away and the air was thick with moisture. Six darted between two passing cabs and down a side street, putting additional distance between her and the house. It wasn’t foolproof, but she’d learned that if she moved far enough away quickly, Mr Mori would only come after her if it were for something truly important.

She moved easily among the pedestrians that thronged the streets in twos and threes now the weather was warmer. She kept her eyes carefully on the ground, not because she was trying to avoid attracting attention, but because Mr Mori had forbidden her when she came to live with him from taking useful things from people on the street, no matter how careless they might be about minding that someone didn’t.

Of course, lots of adults had told Six not to take things from people on the street, but unlike them, somehow Mr Mori always seemed to _know_. And he was different from other adults when she upset him. He neither hit nor yelled, and that made Six feel worse than if he had.

So she kept her eyes down to avoid _that_ temptation, but Mr Mori hadn’t forbidden her everything. Before long, she’d found several pence, a broken chain, and a buckle. The last had been half-buried in mud, but Six had good eyes. Most children in the workhouse did, but hers were better than almost all of theirs and she knew it. She wandered happily until just before the lamplighters came out, and when she returned, Mr Steepleton was setting the table for dinner.

Later that evening, Mr Steepleton took her aside. ‘You have sharp eyes, Six,’ he said.

She didn’t think he was talking about her findings today, which she’d shown to Mr Mori after dinner. If Mr Steepleton had been, he would have said something while Mr Mori was there. Six looked at him silently, waiting. She’d learned it was important to let adults have their say, as Mr Steepleton clearly intended to do. Then, once they’d convinced themselves you had listened, you could decide whether you meant to obey them or not.

Mr Steepleton put a hand on her shoulder and looked straight into her eyes. Six had also learned that she could make adults flinch when she stared back, which she tried to do now because she knew Mr Steepleton, like Mr Mori, wouldn’t hit her.

‘Six, I want to ask you not to say anything about what you saw today.’

Six looked at him silently, brow furrowed. It hadn’t occurred to her to say anything about it, nor did she see why she’d want to even though Mr Steepleton seemed to think that she might. It was obviously important to him, but she didn’t want him to think she’d do as he asked simply _because_ he’d asked, and not ordered. She thought about what to say and chose to play her trump. ‘Mr Mori said I’m not to lie anymore, because I live here now. 

‘Six is good at lying,’ she added despite herself. She wanted very badly for Mr Steepleton know that she was good at things.

Mr Steepleton looked hopefully toward the stairs, but Mr Mori was nowhere in sight. He sighed. ‘He wouldn’t have left it up to me if I were going to make a hash of it,’ he said to himself. And then, to Six, ‘Mr Mori is right, and we mustn’t tell lies.

‘But sometimes, we have to keep secrets to protect each other. Do you understand?’

Six considered for a moment, and thought that she did. It was like not telling Matron that Twelve had taken the loaf of bread from the pantry even when you knew he had, so that he would share some with you later. She pressed her lips into a determined line and nodded, once. 

A smile spread across Mr Steepleton’s face. Six had seen adults smile many times before, enough to grow wary when they did. But Mr Steepleton’s smile was different – like Mr Mori’s, it reached his eyes. Six realized with surprise that he looked proud of her. Something small and warm kindled in her belly, and she looked away, uncertain whether she wanted him to see it. 

Mr Steepleton squeezed her shoulder once, and Six thought she might actually like him just a little bit after all until he undid it all by making her go to bed. 

‘Six, come into the kitchen, please,’ said Mr Mori the following morning before she’d even got the door open wider than a crack. She entered cautiously, unsure whether she’d find Mr Steepleton with him today too, and then eagerly when she saw that she would not. 

Mr Mori was at the table, working on the locust clock. Even though he had a workroom, sometimes he worked in the kitchen too. He said the light was better in the morning. ‘I’ve dropped the balance staff on the floor,’ he said, not lifting his eyes from the mess of gears in front of him. ‘Would you mind seeing if you could find it for me?’

‘Six doesn’t mind,’ she said. ‘Six is good at finding shiny things.’

Mori gave her the warm smile that used to be just for her, but that she now had to share with Mr Steepleton too. But because Mr Steepleton wasn’t here she knew it was all hers this time, and basked in it as she dropped to put her chin to the floor near the sideboard. The flagstones were cool against her cheek.

‘Can Six go out to play when she has?’ she added hopefully. A shadow passed over Mr Mori’s face, and Six was quick enough to catch it. ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment. ‘But stay away from the river. It won’t be safe until the snow has finished melting.’

Six had wanted to go down to the mudflats. She thought about doing so anyway, but then reconsidered. Mr Mori might guess what she intended, and any argument about it would likely result only in more conditions being set on where she could and couldn’t go. So she agreed amicably, and bent her head back to the floor.

She spotted the staff almost immediately. It had rolled into a narrow crack between the flagstones and the wall. It took much longer to fish it out than it had to find it. She eventually managed it using a bit of her own hair, holding her breath as she coaxed it free of the crack. She carried it to the table and laid it carefully where Mr Mori could see it, then ran outside before he could change his mind.

Six strode through the door that afternoon like a conquering general, head raised proudly to show off the bruise purpling around her right eye.

‘Oh my God,’ Mr Steepleton gasped. Six didn’t know why he was making such a fuss, when anyone could see Mr Mori already had a poultice ready on the table. ‘Six,’ he said, dropping to his knees to take her by the shoulders. ‘What happened?’

‘Billy Miller said you and Mr Mori were—’ She told them what he’d said to her, tripping over the unfamiliar phrase. ‘Six made him stop.’ 

Mr Steepleton looked over his shoulder at Mr Mori in alarm. Six preened. Billy Miller was big and several years older, and she hadn’t been sure she could beat him, either. But she could tell he was saying something nasty about Mr Mori and Mr Steepleton and she hadn’t wanted to let him, so she fought him anyway. And she had won.

Several minutes of confusion followed during which Mr Steepleton asked her question after question without waiting for her answers and Mr Mori held the poultice to her face with eyes that were caring and sad. Finally, Six decided she’d had enough, and told them that she was going to go play in the garden. 

When she tired of that and came back in, Mr Mori and Mr Steepleton were nowhere to be found. Six clambered onto the counter and helped herself to a biscuit from the top cupboard shelf, a practice which Mr Steepleton didn’t approve of and Mr Mori did (or at least didn’t forbid). She sat for a few moments with her legs dangling off the edge, munching thoughtfully.

When she’d finished the biscuit and Mr Mori and Mr Steepleton still hadn’t appeared, she decided to go find them. The silence made her wonder suspiciously if they’d gone off without her, as they sometimes did, but when she crept halfway up the stairs, she could hear the low murmur of voices from beyond the door.

‘…thing is likely to come of it, Thaniel.’

‘“Likely.”’ Mr Steepleton’s voice was flat.

There was a pause, into which she could imagine Mr Mori sighing. ‘The possibility is there—no, Thaniel, stop, please, and listen. The possibility is there and will be _always_.

‘But right now the boy is too embarrassed to admit he was thrashed by a girl, and if we refuse to make anything more of it, Six will too, and the Millers will chalk it up to a schoolyard scuffle and forget. And this time at least, there things will stand. All right?’

‘All right,’ said Mr Steepleton at last. 

Six crept carefully back down the stairs. She hadn’t understood it all, but she thought Mr Mori had been saying that there would be trouble if she went back to gloat. She scoffed. It would be just like Billy Miller to run crying to his parents when he’d lost, for all he was bigger and older. Six didn’t care for that sort of dirty tactic at all, and so she decided to make a point to steer well clear of him out of pure disdain. 

That left her the garden. She opened the door and leapt carefully from one stepping stone to the other toward her favorite tree, stirring Mr Mori’s fireflies as she passed. The yard contained several interesting mud puddles that Six wanted very much to splash about in, but she calculated that she’d already caused Mr Mori enough excitement without adding to it with dirty clothing.

A door slammed next door. With her back meaningfully turned from the Haverly’s fence, Six changed course toward the stream. It too was flowing higher and faster than usual, swollen by the melting snow. Several intriguing mud-and-stick piles had already washed up on its banks, which she eyed speculatively as she approached. 

There was a flash of gold by the waterline. She darted toward it, now heedless of the puddles. The current was moving quickly and she didn’t want to lose out on an interesting find by being too cautious. She dropped to her knees in the mud, reaching as far as she dared, and made a snatch. Still, the stream would have swept away it, had it not snatched back. Her eyes widened. 

‘Hello!’ she said as a second tentacle curled around her arm, and clapped, happy to be greeting an old friend. She looked carefully back toward the house to make sure no one was watching from the windows before carrying the little octopus behind the cover of a hedge to play. Eventually she would tell Mr Mori and Mr Steepleton what she’d found, but for now, she wanted a secret of her own.


End file.
